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Dear Disciple,
Today our passage turns in direction and mood. We go from lofty words of encouragement to down and dirty words of war. How can this be? Paul had said to us “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” Now, we have come to understand that by this he does not mean to contrast “spiritual” with “material” things, but “godly” with “ungodly” things. Thus, as we move to verse five, Paul has used the idea of "earthly things" already. Now he goes into detail about what he meant by that, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” So, clearly he is not advocating some flight from the physical “earthly” order, but a flight from an abuse of that order, from a sinful way of living life in the body not consistent with being servants of the risen Christ.
Before I go into detail about the list of those things that are “earthly in you” I want to focus on the verb, that is, what we are to do with these earthy things in us. We are to kill them. We are to put them to death. Paul is talking here about all out war to the death.
I very much like the New American Standard Version. It was the first version of the Bible that I used. But, under the influence perhaps of a “spirituality scheme” that was big around the time of its translation it translated this verb passively – “consider yourselves as dead to.” There has been no small shortage of heartache and emotional and spiritual confusion over that seemingly small translation difference. But the difference is huge. It is between an active and a passive process.
There is a brand of Christian spirituality that views all forms of active energetic engagement in the fight against sin to be “of the flesh” and to be “works of the flesh.” Instead of fighting against sin we are to surrender and let God fight against our sin. We are to “let go” and “let God.” This scheme has a very low view of the self and would see the self as in need of annihilation and eradication so that “Christ in us” can show through and lead the way. It sounds so very spiritual it is easy to get caught up in it.
But it is dead wrong. The fight against indwelling sin is an active fight, fought by the redeemed Spirit-strengthen new self against those remaining parts of the self that are not yet in submission to the risen Christ. Sometimes this fight takes every ounce of energy, every bit of forethought, and every bit of strength that by God’s grace one can muster, even unto exhaustion, but it is to be fought nonetheless, because sin is that bad, and obedience to Christ is that important.
This fight is a fight to the death. Our goal is nothing short of killing our enemy. Ok, sometimes we can kill by direct blow, sometimes by starvation, sometimes by denial of opportunity, sometimes by replacement of a bad habit with a good one (covetousness by contentment and gratitude, anger by forgiveness, etc) but the goal is the same nonetheless. We are to put to death that which is yet to be in submission to Christ, who is our life, with whom our lives are hidden in God. He is supreme. He is our Supreme Lord. He reigns at God’s right hand. And when he says go to war, we go to war. When he says “put to death” we don’t sit around waiting for Him to do what he is telling us (by His strength) to do. No, from that moment, as soon as we know what He wants, we think, we pray, we plan, we act, we live with every intention of not giving these things any chance of having life. And we fight with confidence knowing that "the right man is on our side, the man of God’s own choosing.” So, let’s go and hunt some Orcs! |
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